The present invention relates to an image data operation processing apparatus which has a plurality of n-bit image memories and performs a maximum of 2n-bit image data operations.
Conventionally, an image data operation processing apparatus which processes 2n-bit image data, e.g., 16-bit image data, is often constituted by a normal computer. In this case, since image data operation processing is executed by the computer, image data must be transferred from image memories to a main memory of the computer. After the necessary calculation, the data must be sent back to the image memories. However, such data transfer takes a great deal of time. In order to realize a good man-machine interface, an operation processing apparatus itself becomes bulky, resulting in increased cost. For this reason, it is difficult to use such an apparatus in a small system.
Conversely, in a small system, if a microcomputer is used, operation speed is decreased and good manmachine interface cannot be obtained.
It may be proposed to develop a special-purpose processor for performing 16-bit image data operation. However, such a processor requires a complex hardware arrangement compared with an 8-bit image data operation processor. Therefore, such a processor is difficult to realize and results in high cost.